Agent skills

What it teaches

The skill is a set of instructions your AI tool reads before it works with NateUI. It covers:

• A working order: check what the project already has (components.json, the @/ path, the theme stylesheet, providers), reuse existing components before adding new ones, look up real APIs instead of guessing, install through the CLI, then adapt and verify.
• Shared usage and quality guidance: component APIs, tokens and component defaults, responsive behavior, accessibility, usable states, forms, data views, navigation, feedback and overlays, and code practices.
• Project design discovery: read the application's DESIGN.md or supplied design direction and inspect its actual styles and provider. Visual choices follow that project; a skill update doesn't select a different theme.

The agent loads only the guidance a task needs. The skill is the same for free and Pro users and needs no key.

Install

Pick your tool with --client:

Without --client, the CLI looks for an existing skills folder in the project, such as .claude/skills. If it finds exactly one, it installs there. If it finds several, it asks you to choose with --client. If it finds none, it installs for Codex.

The skill downloads from nateui.com, and every file is checked against the release before it's written. The theme-aware bundle requires CLI 0.0.2 or newer.

Run the project command from your application root. It installs two separate outputs:

• The shared skill and its references in the selected client folder.
• DESIGN.md in the current directory, copied from the maintained NateUI Default starter only when the file is absent.

An existing DESIGN.md is preserved byte-for-byte, including on repeat installs, client changes and --force. The project document belongs to your application and is outside the skill's update manifest. The packaged assets/default-design.md inside the skill folder remains part of the skill release.

The seeded Default document is fallback guidance. In an existing customized application, the agent preserves its effective styles and provider rather than treating the new document as a theme change. Installing the skill applies no CSS and installs no components. To adopt another design direction, deliberately edit or replace your application's DESIGN.md alongside the matching styles and provider; the shared skill does not need reinstalling.

Project or global

By default the skill installs into the current project. Commit it to share it with your team.

A custom skill path is not an application root. For global or custom-path installations, you can deliberately copy the installed assets/default-design.md to the intended application's DESIGN.md if it needs a starter. Preserve any existing document. On UI work, the skill reads the active application's design direction.

The installer checks both output paths before writing, then installs the skill and exclusively creates the project document. A concurrently created regular document is preserved. Symlinks, junctions, directories at DESIGN.md and unsafe path collisions cause an error. If project-document creation fails after the skill installs, the command exits with a partial-setup error. Inspect any partially written DESIGN.md, resolve the error and rerun; an existing regular document is preserved.

Update

The CLI won't replace an installed skill unless you pass --force:

Files that came with the skill are replaced or removed to match the new release. Files you added to the folder yourself are kept. The application-root DESIGN.md is preserved; --force applies only to the skill.

With MCP

The skill teaches your agent how to work with NateUI. MCP gives it the current catalog, each component's API and examples, and source. The skill also works without MCP, using your project's files and the CLI.

Installing the skill doesn't set up MCP. Add MCP separately.